Falling sickness

Late one April morning in 1980, children's author Alan Garner suddenly felt numbness spread through his body. He was sitting at home listening to Benjamin Britten's Serenade For Tenor And Horn, when the music began to provoke terrifying images of death in his mind. Overwhelmed by the blankness of the world and himself, he began to cry.

Now aged 63, Garner - best known for tales inspired by Celtic mythology, such as The Owl Service - remembers these feelings as the onset of manic depression. 'I felt totally without worth, that I was polluting the planet with my presence,' he recalls. 'I spent the next 12 months lying in a foetal position on a couch, practically catatonic. Only my two youngest children, Joseph and Elizabeth, were able to reach me, by stroking the back of my neck.'

It took him nine years to get a correct diagnosis, but now Garner views his condition positively. 'As I only went to my doctor when I felt down, he thought I had normal depression. He prescribed anti-depressants, which had no effect.'

It was only after he joined a study of mood disorders in writers and artists in 1983 that he recognised the manic side of his condition: he would swing from extreme highs, when he would work furiously, to extreme lows, when he could barely move.

The survey, by Dr Kay Redfield Jamison, associate professor at the Neuropsychiatric Institute Center for Health at the University of California in Los Angeles, found in a study of 47 writers and artists that 38% had been treated for a mood disorder. Nearly 90% also reported periods of high productivity, lasting two-to-four weeks, and affecting other areas of their lives.

'With hindsight I could see a cyclical pattern to my behaviour,' says Garner. 'As a child I was what my family called "excitable", then later "over enthusiastic". I remember being very impatient with the way other people seemed to be stupid. I could see connections others could not but I now realise this is connected to the illogical thoughts you have when depressed, like imagining the polar ice caps will melt if you don't tidy the house!'

Psychiatrists have several theories about the cause of manic depression, for example, that it is a reaction to a traumatic event or a chemical imbalance in the brain. But Garner believes his own is hereditary: 'There's evidence of manic depression in my maternal line going back 150 years,' he says. 'Every generation someone seems to have gone off the rails. Though at the time they were dismissed as being under the doctor with nerves.'

Once Garner was correctly diagnosed in 1989, he explained his condition to his five children. 'I told them what to look out for in case it ever affected them,' he says. 'None of them appeared to be frightened. And fortunately my wife, Griselda, is strong enough to get on with her life while being sympathetic.'

Garner's doctor prescribed lithium to control his mood swings but he decided to come off it. 'It was a dreadful experience,' he recalls. 'It's such a toxic substance and it takes doctors some time before they get the level right. I was on it for 10 to 12 weeks and it put me into a twilight world. My senses were dulled, I wasn't excited by anything, or afraid, or curious. Everything was flat. Then there were the physical side effects - nausea, giddiness and tremors, to the extent I couldn't write on paper. I remember thinking, if this is sanity, get me back to madness! Jamison found this was the response of all the artists in her study.'

He stresses that most people benefit from lithium. 'Manic depressives are often convinced they are cured after one episode has been successfully treated, so they stop their medication. They can be incredibly persuasive, and convince their families this is the right decision. But you should always consult your doctor first.

'I risk the lows because the highs are beneficial,' he explains. 'Fortunately, since my first depression, I've only been seriously affected on one other occasion, after the death of a close friend. I still have tough periods but they last hours, or at the most a few days, now. Once the mania takes over I can work solidly for months. You're more open to imaginative thinking.'

Garner has written a book, The Voice That Thunders, about his experience. 'Although manic depression only affects 1% of the population, many sufferers commit suicide. But people can fight back and enjoy a good standard of living. It certainly doesn't dominate my life any more.'

About this article

Falling sickness

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 12.26 EDT on Tuesday 23 June 1998.
It was last modified at 12.26 EDT on Tuesday 23 September 2003.
It was first published at 12.26 EDT on Tuesday 23 September 2003.